I'm not sure what you mean by benchmark ball. Like many bowlers, I own a bunch. I have a 4 ball arsenal that I put together for the lane condition I expect and carry a 5th that I don't bring in just in case.
Where I bowl we have a Jekyll and Hyde reaction. We shoot 4 games in a 22 team league. Lanes 1-12 hook pretty good but 13-22 don't. It's the same oil pattern but the lane surfaces came from another house and 1-12 came from an area in the other house that was used more.
A ball that will strike in game one on the left end will leave a
2-8-10 on the right end. So, my arsenal changes with the pair of lanes I'm bowling on.
I can't say that a person could buy 3 identical balls and just drill them different and that's it. It's not that easy. Where I bowl, the carry-down appears in game 2 and may last for 15 frames, but eventually the lanes will break down forcing bowlers to move left with their feet or to choose a ball with less surface.
How far left a person can move is dependent on style and the amount of hand they get into their shots. I'm 69 and can't step around the ball return anymore, so I'm limited to shooting 13-17 at the arrows. That far left aggressive balls will flare-out, so I keep my rev's up by going to a less aggressive drilling as well as a less aggressive ball surface. I also will switch from an asymmetric ball to a symmetric ball to elongate my hook phase.
I try to control my entry angle. I think too many bowlers become obsessed with a big hook. As a person ages, speed drops, RPM's drop, axis rotation drops and a person has to become smarter not stronger.
My latest endeavor is to unhinge my wrist at the bottom to increase RPM's with less effort. My new hero is a woman, 'New Hui Fen' from Singapore. Nobody gets more on the ball with less effort than her.
Mo Pinel has a video out where he talks about a ball by Radical called 'Fix'. I'm not sure I buy the hype around the ball, but his discussion about ball reaction phases and controlling the lengths of those phases really got my attention. Here's a link;
https://www.facebook.com/radical.bowling.technologies/videos/1075633965890108/